...feeling like the Ray Lewis retirement story is starting to be reminiscent of the Jerome Bettis story in 05? Call me superstitious, but the more I hear about Ray Lewis from the media, the more afraid I get of that story affecting their run in the playoffs.

Well, one good thing is that Ray has already won a Superbowl and people have said he's just saying it to get his time to play harder for the playoffs and really isn't going for sure or he'd already have an agreement with ESPN. The scary thing is Manning is back from a busted neck and IS from New Orleans and the NFL still loves Elway, even though he's a complete drunk idiot that has been banned from every establishment in Denver and is universally hated by all neighbors and those who are involved with him directly in business and so on. Elway is loved by Broncos fans that aren't from Denver. Haha.

SharkHawk wrote:... the NFL still loves Elway, even though he's a complete drunk idiot that has been banned from every establishment in Denver and is universally hated by all neighbors and those who are involved with him directly in business and so on.

SharkHawk wrote:... the NFL still loves Elway, even though he's a complete drunk idiot that has been banned from every establishment in Denver and is universally hated by all neighbors and those who are involved with him directly in business and so on.

Source?

Hadn't heard that before.

Too many sources to name. I played softball in the intermountain region at high levels and interacted with a lot of business owners/sponsors/and high level athletes from Denver. We'd start talking sports and I'd state my allegiance to the Hawks, and then they'd start ragging on the Hawks from the AFC West days. I'd say I hated Elway, and without fail, every time, these guys would tell me the exact same stories. That Elway had been in lots of trouble, wasn't allowed in their businesses, had burned bridge after bridge with business partners, had tried to hook up with anything in a skirt right in front of his wife at parties (and been uninvited from all of them in future years). Etc. etc. etc.

I have a good friend that I talk to regularly. His wife works for the state and is in a pretty high position. He is a guy that just does labor for the roads dept. and is a "nobody" in his book. Really quiet guy that is a working class blue collar guy, but ends up going to these really high profile events and has for going on 20 years. He once confirmed all I had heard and said he'd seen Elway escorted out of state functions because he got hammered and verbally abusive and started playing grab ass and throwing around stuff like the ol' "You know who I AM? I'm John Freaking Elway...." and off he'd go in a cab and the local media would cover for him, because he was a hero in Denver.

He had fallouts with many business partners, including the mess with his auto business. But the same guy who told me about the state things would go put a few down with his blue collar buddies after work and they'd stop in different places due to where they were out working on the roads. He said that more times than he could count he'd see Elway come in and put on a big show, signing autographs, getting free drinks, being a loudmouth and eventually being escorted out. He said he saw it more times than he could count and it got to be the biggest joke in Denver amongst those who knew, which was a lot more people than you'd think. Ask around. I'm not making it up. There's a reason he wasn't in the Broncos front office right away and it took years for them to reach out to him. They were pretty damned desperate after McDaniels and had non-sellouts for the first time in forever. So yeah.... it is a pretty poorly kept secret that he's a horse's ass and has done some stuff that MANY know about. Have I seen it firsthand? No. But many friends and very very trusted people have and told me of it independently and so I trust it after hearing it from at least 10 people over the course of several years.